Are you a pantser, or did you plan your novel?
Did you outline your novel, or simply proceed with the ideas that inspired you to pick up your pen?
I planned my novel from the beginning to the end, then wrote the first draft. However, I was far from satisfied with the end product. I realised that the ending didn’t have conformity with the beginning. But changing the ending and the beginning, meant doing a complete thematic and structural edit of my first draft. But as I did this, I had ideas for further improvement. After much rewriting and many thorough edits, I am happy with my manuscript, but I still have work to do.
How are you getting on with your novel?
A bit off-topic because my (FIRST!!!) book isn't going to be a novel but a picture book. BUT
a) I wanted to thank you, Adrian, because your previous Q - 'Should a would-be author concern themselves with Political Correctness?' https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/question/view/2820 was where I found the inspiration for this story*, and you don't seem to be looking in there ['nevermore']. (Victoria Fielding's relating how her 1yo was smearing porridge into her hair + how her 5yo prefers to smear jam into her OWN hair. The evening after I read the 2nd of those tidbits, I wrote the story, which the 5yo has already agreed to illustrate... with a little help from Mum. I have just sent the story off to a competition, so cross your toes for me!)
b) Several novels have had their genesis in short stories. Will this be the case with mine?
c) If not a novel, certainly a series of picture books should sprout from its delightful characters (and friends yet to appear). And it's already been accepted for publication, with a nod at the idea of that series!
To answer your question: no planning, no agonising over plot: inspiration grabbed me by the neck and it all just flowed from one word to the next. (Although I knew in advance that porridge, jam, and heads were to be involved [strangely, no hair].)
* unfortunately and disgustingly chock-full of political correctness**... and for 4-year-olds (and older)!!!
** We're talking a real OVERDOSE here!
I was talking to my husband about the process of writing my novel today, and I had to admit I have no idea how I did it. That's partly down to the timescale involved; I first wrote it ten years ago in its early form, and I can't for the life of me think how I came up with the characters.
Why the characters act as they do, their backstory, everything except the setting evolved according to their needs and their directions. I knew the beginning and the end, insofar as it's a romance and boy gets girl (not a spoiler - it's not that easy!) but what happens in between revolves so much around who these individuals came to be that it was impossible to plan it out.
There is one complicated chapter when about six groups of people are all acting at the same time but in different places, and I had to draw a map with times to prove that it could all work. That was the only real planning.
I've started the next one; I am learning who the characters want to be, and one at least is not as I first thought. That's how the alchemy happens, I suppose, that turns an idea into a twenty-chapter book.
Lorraine
I agree with you Hannah. I don't know my characters until I've been around them for a while - and then it turns out that some of the things I thought I knew about them are completely wrong! And its half the fun of writing - for me at least.Though as I write, I can see seven notebooks half filled with important notes and random musings, in no particular order.Sometimes organised planning is good...